Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on October 7th, 2025

Elton John played to the biggest crowd since he quit touring in 2023 on Oct. 5 after a Grand Prix race in Singapore. Elton's 16-song set lasted for 90-minutes before an audience of 70,000 people after the Formula One race, and packed with the biggest songs from his illustrious career. The performance came two years on from the conclusion of his "Farewell Yellow Brick Road" tour, which wrapped with an emotional concert in Stockholm, Sweden in the summer of 2023. "Singapore, you were electric!" John wrote on Instagram after the show. "What a feeling being with over 70,000 of you - thank you for being such an incredible crowd." John always said that he would possibly still play "the odd show" after retiring from touring. So far, these have included the 50th annual Candlelight Concert in the US in Dec. 2024 and the opening of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center last summer. In 2023, Sir Elton also played live at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony, where he inducted his longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. His final UK headline performance took place in June 2023, when he delivered a historic, career-spanning set on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival. Fan-captured footage from the Singapore show can be viewed on YouTube. - New Musical Express, 10/7/25...... On Oct 6 Rush surviving members Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson announced they'll embark on their first tour in 11 years beginning in June 2026. The legendary prog rockers announced dates for a 12-show North American swing they are calling the "Fifty Something Tour." It will mark the first time singer/bassist Lee and guitarist/vocalist Lifeson hit the road since the group wrapped their "R40" 40th anniversary tour on Aug.1, 2015 at the Forum in Los Angeles. According to a press release, the outing will be a celebration of Rush's "music, legacy and the life of late drummer and lyricist Neil Peart"; the band's time-keeper and primary lyricist died of the brain cancer glioblastoma on Jan. 7, 2020 at age 67. Fittingly, the tour will kick off on June 7 with the first of two shows at the KIA Forum in L.A., followed by shows in Mexico City, Fort Worth, Chicago, New York and Toronto, wrapping up on Sept. 17 at the Rocket Arena in Cleveland. The "evening with" shows will feature the band playing two sets a night, with each show featuring a distinctive set of songs pulled from a setlist of 35 hits and fan favorites. They will be joined on the dates by German drummer/composer/producer Anika Nilles, 41, who has performed with Jeff Beck and released four solo albums. "It's been over 10 years since Alex and I have performed the music of RUSH alongside our fallen bandmate and friend Neil," wrote Geddy Lee in a statement. "A lifetime's worth of songs that we had put our cumulative hearts and souls into writing, recording and playing together onstage. And so, after all that has gone down since that last show, Alex and I have done some serious soul searching and come to the decision that we f---ing miss it, and that it's time for a celebration of 50-something years of RUSH music... No small task, because as we all know Neil was irreplaceable," he added. Fans can get in on a Rush artist pre-sale by signing up at Ticketmaster.com by Oct. 9 at 11:50 p.m. ET; the general on-sale beings on Oct. 17 at 12 p.m. local time for the U.S. and Canada and 11 a.m. local time for Mexico. Meanwhile, in January Rush released the 50-track super deluxe anthology RUSH 50, which runs from the first-ever reissue of their 1973 debut single through a live recording of the final song the trio played together during the "R40 Tour" closer at the Forum. - Billboard, 10/6/25...... Among the more salacious claims in Lionel Richie new memoir Truly is that his "We Are The World" collaborator Michael Jackson was nicknamed "Smelly" for poor hygiene and would "wear pants until they were unwearable." Richie says the King of Pop led an "eccentric" day-to-day life, "like an absent-minded professor but still a kid." He went on to claim that late music producer Quincey Jones, who worked with Jackson on some of his most famous songs, would tease Jackson with the nickname "Smelly." He also claims in his book: "Michael would laugh too, realizing that he was oblivious to the fact that he hadn't changed or washed his clothes for a couple of days or so... We all have our quirks." Richie says his poor hygiene was partly due to his extreme level of fame, saying he couldn't simply visit a department store to buy things or risk being mobbed by fans. Also, he says when he sent clothes for cleaning, they'd often never be returned on account of his fame. "Everybody kept something for a souvenir," writes Richie. "He just got into the habit of wearing the same pants until they were unwearable." He continues: "(Michael) was on tour performing in the elaborate costumes made for him by his stylists, or he was in his pyjama bottoms and slippers in the studio or he was in his going-out attire. Or he was at home in something loose and comfortable so he could practice his dance moves and play with his menagerie of pets." - NME, 10/6/25...... As she kicked off her 2025 North American tour at the Moda Center in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 1, Stevie Nicks performed a Fleetwood Mac track no one could have expected. Towards the end of her career-spanning set, Stevie surprised the audience by performing "Angel" for the first time since 1983. Not only was it the first time she's performed the track in over four decades, it's also the first time she's played the track solo. Elsewhere during her set, she performed a slew of other FM classics such as "Dreams," "Gypsy," "Gold Dust Woman," "Rhiannon" and "Landslide." She also covered Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" and performed her own solo hits "Outside The Rain," "The Lighthouse," "Stand Back," "Edge Of Seventeen" and more. Fan-shot footage of Stevie's "Angel" performance has been shared on X.com. Nicks's tour was originally set to kick off in August, but was rescheduled after the singer suffered a shoulder fracture. The August and September dates have since been rescheduled for late October, November and December. Meanwhile, a reissue of Nicks and her former partner Lindsey Buckingham's 1973 LP Buckingham Nicks recently debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard album chart in the US. - NME, 10/3/25...... On Oct. 1 The Who performed their final show of their North American farewell tour at the Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms, Calif. Surviving co-founding members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend and co. opened the performance with a live rendition of "I Can't Explain," before rocking other Who chestnuts including "Substitute," "Who Are You," "I Can See For Miles" and "Pinball Wizard." The penultimate track of the night was "The Song Is Over" from the band's 1971 fifth studio album, Who's Next, and the band made a final goodbye with a tender performance of "Tea & Theatre" -- a single from their 11th studio set, 2006's Endless Wire. "I suppose, you know, it's goodbye," Townshend told the audience at the end. "That's what it is. To what we know as The Who, it's goodbye. What Roger and I will get up to next, who knows? If we last any longer, I'm sure we'll get up to all kinds of mischief. We'll do stuff together, I'm sharing some stuff, all kinds [of] bits and pieces. But for this kind of thing, it's goodbye. And you were last!" Daltrey said: "Thank you so much for your support, over all the years. It means so much to us. It was every band's dream in the '60s to make it in America. And thanks to you guys, you made it happen for us. Thank you so much!" A fan-shot clip of the moment has been shared on YouTube. It currently seems unlikely that there will be a final album from The Who. Townshend expressed his desire for the band to make another record in 2024, but said there was "a bit of a river to cross" in convincing Daltrey. "What's the point?" Daltrey said in 2023. "We released an album four years ago [2019's WHO], and it did nothing. It's a great album too, but there isn't the interest out there for new music these days. People want to hear the old music. I don't know why, but that's the fact." - NME, 10/3/25...... In a new Ozzy Osbourne documentary aired by BBC One on Oct. 2, Ozzy reflected on the "emotional" yet "terribly frustrating" final Black Sabbath show this summer. Sharon & Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home is an intimate film that charts the final years of the rock icon's life as he prepared to get fit enough to perform at the huge "Back To The Beginning" farewell show in Birmingham on July 5. In poignant scenes at the end of the documentary, Osbourne spoke about the experience of performing in front of 44,000 people for one final time. In footage captured five days after the show, Ozzy sat in his kitchen with his son Jack and daughter Kelly Osbourne, and they reflected on their favorite moments from the gig. "I have to say that my favourite part of the whole weekend was when dad sang 'Mama, I'm Coming Home'," Kelly said. "I don't feel like there was one dry eye. Oh my god, dad, everybody was crying." Ozzy responded: "I got all emotional with that. I couldn't f---ing get the words out, I was just swallowing my f----ing emotion." Jack interjected to say: "The guys from Metallica, Slayer, Tool, everybody was just up there, like, crying." The conversation prompted Ozzy to share: "The only thing I really got what was terribly frustrating for me, I had to sit there instead of running across the stage. That was fucking torture, because I wanted to get off that [chair] so much... It was very humbling, to sit in that chair for nine songs. What a great way to go out, that gig was." Another new Ozzy documentary, No Escape From Now, details the Prince Of Darkness' final six years and is now streaming in the US via Paramount+. Its trailer can be viewed on YouTube. - NME, 10/3/25...... AC/DC has been hit with a formal noise complaint by the Edinburgh council after playing a show at Edinburgh's Murrayfield Stadium over the summer. On Aug. 21, AC/DC played their first gig in Scotland in a decade with a high-octane set that garnered eight complaints from locals about the noise pollution, the BBC reported. Environmental health officers were said to have carried out noise measurements at the venue and other city locations, and reported that the "permitted noise level was exceeded" during the AC/DC concert, with officials pointing largely to fireworks set off at the end of the shows for the excessive noise. A spokesperson for the council said they will now recommend that fireworks are not used during future events at the stadium. Also hit with a noise complaint was Oasis, who played three concerts earlier in the month that also attracted complaints. - NME, 10/2/25...... It has been revealed that the surviving members of The Cars -- guitarist Elliot Easton, drummer David Robinson and keyboardist Greg Hawkes -- have been working on new music started by late Cars frontman Ric Ocasek. The trio of the legendary new wave band have been building a collection of tracks from the dozens of demos Ocasek left behind, as was teased in the new Cars biography The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told by Buffalo Tom frontman Bill Janovitz. According to Janovitz, after Ocasek's passing Hawkes received a trove of more than 20 demo recordings, curated by one of Ocasek's longtime confidants. Among them was "I Just Can't Stay," a rare gem showcasing vocals from both Ocasek and late bassist Benjamin Orr, believed to originate from their collaborative days before The Cars officially formed. After initial production work with Ed Valauskas and engineer Joel Edinberg, Hawkes invited drummer David Robinson and guitarist Elliot Easton to join the effort. Easton is said to have started adding his guitar parts in Aug.2024, starting with "I Just Can't Stay" and "Can't Stop the Rain." The latter boasts an epic solo by Easton. Janovitz penned: "Elliot's twenty-five second solo on 'Can't Stop the Rain' is sure to put smiles on the faces of fans, as it did for me." As it stands, there is no official release date for the project. The book notes that the estates of Ocasek and Orr are said to be "optimistic that disagreements about Cars' business would not get in the way of giving their fans unheard Cars music." Ocasek died at the age of 75 from hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in 2019. His last music release was his final solo album, 2005's Nexterday. Orr lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 53 in 2000. The Cars, formed in Boston in 1976, reunited in 2010 and released the album Move Like This in 2011, but disbanded again shortly afterward. The band came together once more for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2018. - Music-News.com, 10/2/25...... Film and television actor James (Jim) Mitchum, the son of the legendary Hollywood star Robert Mitchum, died on Sept. 20 at his home in Skull Valley, Ariz. He was 84. Jim Mitchum appeared in over 35 titles between 1949 and 1994, including such titles as Thunder Road and Moonrunners. - Variety, 10/2/25...... Ike Turner, Jr., musician and son of Ike Turner and Tina Turner, died on Oct. 4 in Los Angeles, just one day after his 67th birthday. The musician had suffered from kidney failure after several years of ill health. His niece also told TMZ.com that he had struggled with heart problems and had a stroke in September. The musician, who largely stayed away from the spotlight despite the fame of his parents, lost his father, Ike, in 2007 at the age of 76, followed by Tina, who died at 83 in 2023. Ike and Tina married in 1962 and shared four children. Tina adopted Ike Sr.'s two sons from his previous relationship -- Ike Jr. and Michael Turner. When he was a teenager, Ike Sr. took his son out of the studio to join him in running his recording studio. He also worked for a short time as Tina's sound engineer. Both Ike Jr. and his father went on to win a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album, Risin' with the Blues,, in 2007. - NME, 10/6/25...... Chris Dreja, a core member of the seminal British blues-rock band The Yardbirds and who helped shape the sound of some of their biggest hits, passed away on Oct. 2, according to his sister-in-law, Muriel Levy. He was 79. "It is with a deep sadness that I have to announce that my brother-in-law Chris Dreja, former member of legendary band The Yardbirds, rhythm guitarist and also bass player has passed away after years of health problems," Levy posted. "I share the pain with my sister Kate who took care of him during all those years and his daughter Jackie... May he RIP." The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, into which Dreja was inducted as a member of The Yardbirds in 1992, paid homage to the band's "innovations in feedback and distortion" and credited them for informing a slew of burgeoning genres like psychedelic rock, progressive rock, and punk in their short-lived but highly influential tenure" in a post on X/Twitter. They also noted that Dreja co-wrote all their material once he joined in the early '60s, including the seminal hit "Over Under Sideways Down'" on their self-titled 1966 album and several tracks on 1967's Little Games. Dreja's former Yardbirds bandmate Jimmy Page also paid tribute on Instagram, sharing a picture of the two of them together and writing: "I heard today of the passing of musician Chris Dreja, who passionately played with the iconic Yardbirds, on rhythm guitar and then the bass. I hadn't seen him in a while, and I wish I had. RIP Chris." Born Christopher Walenty Dreja, the musician grew up in Kingston Upon Thames and was immersed in rock and roll music from his teen years. His brother was a classmate of original Yardbirds lead guitarist Anthony "Top" Topham, who he'd ultimately form The Yardbirds with. In 1963, Dreja and Topham, alongside Jim McCarty, Keith Relf, Paul Samwell-Smith, co-founded the Metropolitan Blues Quartet, a blues band which later evolved into The Yardbirds. Dreja started out as their rhythm guitarist but switched to bass in 1966 following Samwell-Smith's departure and Page's arrival. Subsequent years saw Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck pass through the band as lead guitarist. The years that followed saw Clapton leave the band for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Beck's addition to their line-up. The years that followed were their most successful, spurning tracks like "Evil Hearted You," "Still I'm Sad," "Over Under Sideways Down" and their 1966 self-titled album -- often called "Roger the Engineer," after the cover Dreja illustrated. His artistic endeavours also saw him work as as a photographer for many years, shooting the likes of Bob Dylan, Tina Turner and Led Zeppelin. After the Yardbirds split, Page went on to form the latter band and offered Dreja a spot as their bassist, which he wound up declining, instead opting to pursue photography. Dreja went on to co-found Box of Frogs with former bandmates McCarthy and Samwell-Smith in the early 1980s. He later reunited with drummer Jim McCarty to revive The Yardbirds in the '90s, touring and recording with a rotating cast of musicians until stepping back in 2013 due to health issues. - NME, 10/2/25.